A Moonlight Talk
by Harpy101
Summary: This was inspired by historical readings about the Boer war, in which the first concentration camps appeared, built by the British. Public support for that war waned when the British people found out about the atrocities committed for wealth. In my imagination, this would be the hardest to bear for someone like Mr. Bates. These are not my characters.


Anna padded softly around the bedroom in her bare feet with a candle, getting ready for bed. She slipped under the covers and up against her husband's back, curling a hand under his arm and around his chest. She took a long, cool, contented breath and snuggled down to sleep.

Thoughts of a walk that day meandered through her mind. She had asked Mr. Branson if she could walk little Sybil while Lady Mary and the baby napped, and he had obliged; she had invited John, who had no errands anyway and was happy to accompany her. They parked the pram by a bench under a tree and passed little Sybil back and forth, talking about children, about how they both missed Lady Sybil, about the future. Anna liked to watch John playing with the baby's little hands and feet – and then she saw a darkness pass across his features as if a cloud had come over him. He had put the mood away somewhere inside himself but Anna knew something, probably from the past, was on his mind. She hadn't had a chance to ask him about it for the rest of the day. She held her husband close in the bed and drifted off.

The setting moon cast a soft blue light through the lace of the curtain edges. A slice of filigreed light fell across the bed. Anna woke slightly and turned her face into the back of her husband's neck to shade her eyes. He shivered. Then a moment later he started awake, sitting up to draw deep breaths.

Anna came up with him; she looked at John in the moonlight, hair ruffled, eyes wide. She put her hand on his arm. His breath was ragged.

"You had a nightmare,"

"Yes,"

"Did you dream of prison?"

"No,"

Anna rubbed his shoulder; she could feel him shaking.

"I wish you would tell me about it,"

He went very still and Anna saw first one, then two tears making their way down his face.

"Oh, John," she moved closer, wrapping her arms around him. "What is it? Can't you tell me?"

"I was thinking about children when I drifted off. Children we might have,"

"Yes?"

He was silent for a time again.

"In the war...it was a war for gold, you know,"

"I knew that, I think,"

"It wasn't just men who died. Dying in battle is a choice of a sort. And even wives agree to war, at least to a point. But children..." he rocked forward a little in misery, taking a deep breath, "How can children be killed for gold?"

"Were they?"

"In the camps. They...we..._we..._cut the Boer families down to half rations,"

Anna remembered something of this in the newspapers.

"Children...starved to death...for gold. By us,"

Anna stroked her husband's hair. "Did you see them?"

"I can't stop seeing them,"

Anna wiped his tears away.

"I'm sorry," he said, his eyes flashing at her, "To wake you for a display,"

"Stop that before I smack you," said Anna, rubbing his back. "You're my husband. And we don't keep our feelings from each other,"

He looked at her. In the moonlight, with his hair mussed from the pillow and traces of tears still on his cheeks, his fair skin was almost luminescent and his eyes nearly glazed with awful memories. Anna saw him as a boy and felt her own eyes stinging. She would love to have a boy who looked like his father, and even better, who would _be _like his father. But, "Children will be who they are," was one of Anna's mother's favorite phrases. You couldn't expect anything, and the one thing to hope for was a healthy child.

In lieu of that she needed to care for the this little boy now, the little boy within her tough husband.

"Some of the worst things in the world happen to children," he said.

Anna pushed him back onto the pillow and crawled over him, lying full length on top of him with her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"How does a man get to the point where he will do such a thing? It's hate, Anna. Hate can be a result of righteousness when you convince yourself that another person deserves your punishment. It's a perilous path that we walk, every day, deciding how to treat each other. We have such power over the helpless. And so often we do the wrong things,"

"Do you remember once, I said I hoped Vera would burn in hell. Vera, who tried to kill you and take you from me, purely for revenge, and you told me not to go down that road because there was no way off it,"

"Exactly," he said, "It's a slippery one. It can start with what seems like a good reason, then when the momentum builds almost anything can seem justifiable. No matter what injuries we incur, we can never afford to start that slide into injustice and cruelty. I knew what I had to do. I did my job. I killed other men in war. But the one thing that never leaves me is what happened to the children,"

He stopped. Anna came up on her forearms and kissed the tears away; he pulled her onto his chest and rocked her.

"It's true, I know," said Anna. "And we don't have control over the world. It's also true that happy children are born and live and become good people, and I think our children would be those people,"

"Of course. I think the same. But there is another thing,"

"Yes?"

"Vera and I had no children,"

"Did she want them?"

"Not especially, no,"

"If ever I met a she-wolf who would gnaw off her own paw to escape a trap..."

"You think it could have been her?"

"Of course,"

"But we don't know that,"

"You are the man I want. If I knew I would never have children with you I would have married you just as quickly. If children aren't in our future we have very little to say about that. Don't fret what you can't mend, my mother used to say,"

"How many times have I benefited from your mother's wisdom?" he mused, one hand caressing her neck, the other stroking her back, and she could hear the grief retreating from his voice.

"I'm glad I had a chance to know yours,"

"'Do you know what she said about you? She said of you in a letter, 'Now, _that _would be the girl to marry,'"

Anna laughed and knew she was turning a little pink, even in the dark.

"The moon's gone down," she said.

"I'm sorry I woke you,"

"Would you be sorry, if I woke you to talk?"

"No,"

"Do you see how lucky we are? We have each other, John. No matter what happens, let us just be grateful for that, and pay mind to that,"

"But I would love a little girl with your big blue eyes. A little girl to ruin," she could hear a grin in his voice now.

"I would never allow spoiled little monsters,"

"I know you wouldn't. Until your back was turned and I could give her anything she wanted,"

"I thought you wanted boys, anyway!" Anna half sat up, looking down at his shadowed face.

"I want whatever happens. As long as we have each other," He put a hand to her cheek and brought her in for a kiss.

"That's more like it," said Anna, snuggling her head back into the hollow of his shoulder as his arms closed around her, "I may not have to smack you after all,"


End file.
